New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 10429" data-attributes="member: 22">09/Mar/83: DYNASTY: Fathers and Sons v 10/Mar/83: KNOTS LANDING: Willing Victims v. 11/Mar/83: DALLAS: The Sting v. 11/Mar/83: FALCON CREST: ClimaxThis week's KNOTS LANDING and FALCON CREST make for contrasting season finales, as indicated by their episode titles. While “Climax” pretty much does what it says on the tin, (even if there is an awful lot of pre-wedding happy family foreplay to get through before we reach the really juicy stuff) “Willing Victims” is a more unusual title for a more unusual finale. Indeed, this instalment of KNOTS is really in a league of its own. Most of the ep feels more psychological than plot driven, as it focuses on Gary's state of mind in the two days leading up to his preliminary court hearing. “Gary’s his own worst enemy,” says Mack, neatly articulating the situation. "He’s gotta open up and help defend himself.” But who will be able to get through to him in time - Abby or Val?This week’s DYNASTY, meanwhile, which concentrates chiefly on Steven’s homecoming, is pretty much irresistible. A big, swirly episode full of big, swirly emotions and driven along by a big, swirly score, it’s as touching as it is daft. There are some unusually sweet moments - Krystle breaking the news of Steven’s resurrection to a grateful Alexis marks the first time the two women have been anything but hostile to one another, while Krystle's scene with Jeanette the maid, in which she allows her mixed feelings about Steven’s return to surface - now that he is alive, she can no longer adopt his child - is unexpectedly moving. (Linda Evans is really great here.)This is one of several times this season where Krystle’s situation echoes that of Soap Land’s original bride from the wrong side of the tracks, Pam Ewing. Her accidental bigamy coming back to haunt her is a spin on Pam’s predicament in the early DALLAS stand alone ep “Double Wedding”, while the story of her and Blake’s efforts to adopt the son of a deceased family member starts off mirroring Bobby and Pam’s adoption of Christopher, before morphing this week into the Season 2 episode where Pam tearfully surrenders her attachment to Baby John when Sue Ellen decides to assume her maternal responsibilities.There two Soap Land weddings this week, bringing the season’s total up to five. On DYNASTY, Jeff and Kirby elope to Reno where they are married by the same judge who previously declared Jock Ewing dead and ordered Val and Gary to take in Lilimae. Like Mack and Karen’s Vegas wedding on KNOTS, the ceremony is a tad eccentric, but where the Mackenzies’ nuptials were knowingly comedic (and maybe even a little smug), the Colbys’ are more naturally sweet and fumbly. Nick Hogan and Vicky Gioberti’s wedding at Falcon Crest is comparatively formal, more in the vein of JR and Sue Ellen’s remarriage at Southfork. As that celebration did, this one ends in violence, but instead of a poolside punch up, there is a fatal shooting. Yes, just as the first Soap Land wedding of the season - Alexis and Cecil’s on DYNASTY - ended in death, so does the last one. (But who’s in the coffin? Tune in next season to find out!)New York continues to be a controversial Soap Land hotspot. Steven’s announcement that he is “going to New York!”, followed by Blake’s unhappy reaction shot, ends this week’s DYNASTY. Meanwhile, on KNOTS, our final glimpse of Karen MacKenzie for the season is her hysterical response to the news that Diana has left for New York with Chip, aka violent felon Tony Fenice. (In the KNOTS finale's one blatant plot contrivance, no sooner do Chip and Diana drive away from the cul-de-sac than private eye Ronald Mackey - a possible cousin to John Mackey, the PI who helped Pam track down Rebecca in DALLAS two years ago - shows up brandishing a wanted poster of Chip under his real name.)Over on FALCON CREST, Richard Channing has already been held captive in New York for a week when this episode begins. (The disappearances of Richards Channing and Avery in this week’s Soap Land are viewed by various parties as an indication of their guilt of the respective murders for which they have been suspected.) Eventually, Richard C is ushered into an office to meet the real head of the complex organisation he has been working for his whole adult life. As “the chair spins round to reveal …" moments go, this one beats Logan Rhinewood turning out to be Cecil Colby in DYNASTY hands down. It’s also Soap Land’s biggest “My God, that’s my mother!” moment since Fallon and Steven looked on as Alexis took the stand at Blake’s trial. In fact, the discovery that Chase and Richard’s ditzy mother Jacqueline is the secret CEO of a ruthless international cartel is one of most joyously absurd moments in all of Soap Land. “Haven’t you heard? Women are coming into their own,” she coos, wielding a cigarette holder as if that explains everything. For some reason, more than Angela Channing or Alexis Colby or Rebecca Wentworth, Jacqueline Perrault feels like the true progenitor of New DALLAS’s Judith Ryland - even if Judith would most likely snort Jacqueline for breakfast.The murder investigations in KNOTS and FALCON CREST each run aground this week. Laura Avery might be convinced that her husband Richard killed Ciji before taking off, but she can’t get anyone else to take her claim seriously. “With Gary’s arrest and him not willing to defend himself, it takes the energy right out of the investigation,” Mack explains to Karen. Meanwhile, on FALCON CREST, Sheriff Robbins tells Chase that the search for Charles Fong, the key witness in the Agretti murder case, is over following the death of Fong’s uncle, who was the only solid link they had to him. (Following Gus Nuneoz, Carlo Agretti and Henri Denault, Fong Senior becomes FALCON CREST’s fourth dead patriarch of the season.)In this week’s Ewingverse, Miss Ellie and Lilimae each find themselves caught between one of their children and an estranged spouse. On DALLAS, Miss Ellie has an awkward encounter when she bumps into daughter-in-law Pam lunching with Mark Graison. After she fails to report the meeting to Bobby and he finds out about it anyway, he asks her why she kept quiet. "It's not my business," she squirms. "I don't want to get in the middle of it.” Lilimae does not exercise the same restraint regarding her daughter’s marriage on KNOTS, however. "Gary Ewing kills people!” she yells at Val, who is still obsessed with helping her ex. "He’s killing you now, Valene!”“JR’s and Gary’s marriages have always been so troubled,” reflects Miss Ellie during her scene with Bobby. Notably, this observation comes a week after her off-screen phone conversation with Abby on KNOTS and is as close as DALLAS will ever get to acknowledging Gary and Val’s split. Lilimae apologises to Val for her outburst, meanwhile, in an exquisitely written scene between the two women. “I’m sorry for the pain love has caused you,” she tells her movingly.While Gary and Val are emotionally broken on KNOTS, their daughter Lucy is slowly coming back to life on DALLAS. So sweetly tentative has Mickey’s courtship of her been (“I never asked a girl if I could kiss her before …") that she really is like a virgin, touched for the very first time. Meanwhile, Mickey’s KNOTS LANDING counterpart, Chip Roberts, makes love - strictly in the old fashioned sense - to Lucy’s grandmother one last time before leaving for New York. “I don’t know why but whenever I see a butterfly, I think of you,” he tells her. "I leave with you in my heart, Lilimae, and if I failed you, forgive me, and trust that my failures are not yours. Good-bye, butterfly.” For all that Chip is a deceitful, violent sociopath, you still can't help hoping that a part of him means what he is saying. His parting gift to Lilimae is a butterfly brooch. Over on DYNASTY, Mark Jennings notices Alexis wearing the pin with a bee on it that he gave her during their brief affair some weeks ago. They share a très sophisticated post-break up drink at La Mirage this week - all smiles and no-hard-feelings on the surface, while resentment and jealousy seethe underneath.On last week’s DYNASTY, Kirby found herself in a motel room, fending off the man who had raped her earlier in the season. On this week’s DALLAS, Lucy Ewing is also in a motel room, recounting her ordeal at the hands of Roger Larsen to Mickey. With that out of the way, they are free to take their relationship to the next level. “It’s not a suite at the Fairview or anything,” says Mickey apologetically, with regard to their surroundings. It’s not a suite at La Mirage either, which is where Fallon and Mark have also decided to seal the deal. Just as the scene between Lucy and Mickey is very tender, DYNASTY seems equally keen to emphasise that, in contrast to Mark’s fling with Alexis, his coupling with Fallon is about more than just animal lust. Alas, the intimacy of the moment is somewhat undermined by the '80s saxophone wailing on the soundtrack.The big story in DALLAS this week is the successful derailing of JR’s Cuban deal by Bobby and Ray, which results in Walt Driscoll landing in jail on a gun smuggling charge. Even though Walt's $2,500 bail is a fraction of the $5,000,000 required to secure Gary’s bond on KNOTS LANDING, JR has no intention of paying it (“I wouldn’t give you the dust off my car!”). Willing victim Gary might be indifferent to his own fate, (“Pleading not guilty means acting not guilty,” Abby tells him. “I will never be 'not guilty',” he shrugs) Walt is not. “I swear I'll get back at you!" he yells after JR washes his hands of him.JR and Walt's situation is reversed on KNOTS. Determined to save Gary, Val spends much of the episode trying to find a way to gain access to him in jail. When she finally succeeds, Gary couldn’t be less happy to see her. “Get out of here! Get out of my life! Leave me alone!” he shouts, but she is insistent. "No one here needs a martyr,” she tells him. "Someone out there is getting away with murder while you play this pathetic game. If you had any respect for Ciji, you’d be doing everything in your power to put the real killer in here.” On FALCON CREST, Chase makes a similar eleventh-hour appeal to Charles Fong, whom he eventually tracks down at his uncle’s funeral (or the Chinese equivalent thereof). “He was an old man, a man of honour and pride,” weeps Charles for his uncle. "I have shamed him.” “You have a chance to correct that,” Chases points out.This week’s DALLAS is helmed by Larry Elikann. A veteran of each of the other Lorimar soaps, he is probably Soap Land's most visually distinctive director. DALLAS’s traditional house style, however, provides him with little opportunity for him to do his customary looming, cartoony, low-camera-angle thing. The scenes where he does get an opportunity to spread his wings, the two jail sequences and a great face-to-face confrontation between the Ewing boys in JR’s bedroom, are the episode’s highlights. (There’s also a scene where he has Pam and Katherine sitting on the floor of Pam’s hotel suite for no discernible reason, like a couple of high heeled hippies. It’s a little weird.)David Jacobs himself, meanwhile, directs this week’s KNOTS and does some interesting visual stuff, particularly during a couple of pivotal mother and daughter encounters. In a scene where Karen comes to Diana’s room to tell her that Chip was sleeping with Ciji before her death, one can pinpoint the exact moment where Diana begins to block out reality and where Karen starts coming unglued. Crudely put, it’s the start of both mother and daughter going individually nuts. For most of the scene, the camera hovers in the doorway, as if reluctant to intrude any closer.Meanwhile, at the beach house, Gary’s lawyer Mitch Casey confidently assures Abby that Gary will be freed after his preliminary hearing. Abby looks pleased, then waits until Mitch has left before calling her own attorney, Jim Westmont, and asking him first to fire Mitch and then to represent Gary himself in court (even though he is not a criminal lawyer). It’s a breathtaking moment - does Abby actually want Gary to be found guilty of murder? In addition, Olivia has been listening from another room the whole time. How much she has understood is unclear, but this is her first glimpse (at least on screen) of her mother's more calculating side - Abby is not just the carefree mom who takes her kids to Chick-O-Rama for dinner, or into her bed at night when they’ve had bad dreams. During this sequence, Jacobs has both mother and daughter framed separately, again through doorways, and viewed from a distance, as if to emphasise their isolation from one another.Another visually striking scene is Laura’s meltdown in the restaurant kitchen. Coming eleven months after Miss Ellie’s plate-smashing breakdown in the Southfork kitchen when the realisation of her husband’s death finally hit her, the acknowledgement of her husband’s desertion prompts a similar outburst from Laura. Whilst effective, the DALLAS scene has always seemed to me a neatly choreographed visual set piece. The KNOTS equivalent feels more spontaneous and real. There is no musical score accompanying Laura as she sets about the kitchen equipment with a frying pan, and the camera work is such that it really feels as if we are intruding on someone's raw, private distress. (Again, it’s something to do with the respectful distance the camera keeps from the actor.)From the sublime to … the denouement of FALCON CREST’s season long murder mystery. The scene where Charles Fong identifies Carlo’s killer in a room full of wedding guests is both stilted and thrilling, in much the same way that the “Who shot JR?” revelation on DALLAS was. Whereas his role of Dr. Chen on DYNASTY required him to unveil an entirely new face for Steven Carrington, James Hong’s part as Fong has him reveal an entirely new personality for Julia Cumson when he exposes her as the murderer. Julia’s subsequent speech, in which she hurriedly explains not only why she killed a man with whom she had no previous on-screen connection, but also why she then tried to bump off three of her closest friends, has a whiff of SCOOBY DOO about it. But while it might be ludicrous, it is also immensely exciting to discover that, all this time, the killer has been hiding not just in plain sight, but in the show’s opening titles.And this week’s Soap Land Top 4 are … again, it’s really close, they were all great ...1 (3) KNOTS LANDING2 (4) DYNASTY3 (1) FALCON CREST4 (2) DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?